Alento case study: using social media to reach consumers

Traditionally, consumers spent time on the Internet purely to consume content: they read, watched, and used it to purchase products and services. However, nowadays consumers also use SM platforms to co-create, share, modify, and discuss internet content. This symbolises an 'SM phenomenon' that can now influence a company’s sales, reputation, and survival (Kietzmann, Hermkens, McCarthy, & Silvestre, 2011, p. 241). Among the different SM available, Facebook has become very popular among firms to promote their brands or products (Cheung & Leung, 2016). Nevertheless, many executives mismanage or ignore this social network, because they do not understand its importance and especially because they do not know how to engage with it (Kietzmann et al., 2011). The purpose of this study is to provide a solution to a problem raised by Alento, a human resources and consulting company, which intended to understand how the company should increase its engagement with its official Facebook page.